This video presents our partners for this community engagement art project

The Territories of Dreams project is a temporary and participatory art installation anchored in nature. We created a crochet tapestry** ten meters long and one meter wide to tie together the dreams of Alberta’s Francophone, Cree and Anglophone communities. In April 2023, we travelled from northern to southern Alberta to visit five schools where, to collect students’ dreams, we offered writing-on-fabric workshops as well as art workshops inspired by the works of artist Jean Paul Riopelle.

The Collective Conversation is working under the guidance of Elder Harley Crowshoe, a respected and well-known First Nations mediator. Elder Harley Crowshoe is of Blackfoot ancestry from southern Alberta. In 1997, he was inducted as an honorary chief of the Piikani Nation. In the past, he has worked for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and founded an on-reserve policing model that focused on community-based policing and delivered culturally safe and responsive police services on his reserve. Currently, he sits on the National Advisory Committee on Missing Children from Residential Schools and Unmarked Graves.

In response to the Foundation Riopelle’s call to “move closer to nature”, the tapestry is installed on a circular wooden structure made of fallen trees found on the property. Starting in June and till fall 2023, the work is exhibited in the sculpture park of the Kiyooka Ohe Arts Centre (KOAC), a public space combining art and nature. Our collective Conversation and KOAC invite the public to add their own dreams to the Territories of Dreams installation.

*The school partners are: La Vérendrye Francophone School in Lethbridge, Kapawe’no Nêhiyawak (Cree) school in Grouard, École La Source francophone school in Calgary, West Island College anglophone school in Calgary, École Boréal francophone school in Fort McMurray.

** The association Creating Strong Families and Communities in Calgary (CARYA) partnered with the project by bringing together a Calgarian senior citizen group. They are sharing their skills and are creating the project Crochet panels.